


The beauty in darkness

by DivineBurrito



Series: I'll be right here, holding your hand [1]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Budding Love, First Meetings, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, young dragon slayers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 13:48:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20136457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineBurrito/pseuds/DivineBurrito
Summary: Sting and Rogue, two young dragon slayers with a lot of differences and maybe equally as much similarities, meet at the age of just twelve. While Sting doesn’t leave the greatest first impression on Rogue, Rogue decides to stay by his side anyway, as Phantom Lord has been officially disbanded and his former goal of finding Gajeel seems out of reach. Not that Sting had any intention of leaving him alone, of course. But even bad first impressions can lead to something unexpected.





	The beauty in darkness

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally bit the bullet and finished one of my many wip's! Yay! This has been laying around for way too long already...
> 
> But anyway, this work is part of a series of oneshots that focus on some special and precious moments in the lives of the Twin Dragons. A bit slice of life-ish, but themes and ratings will vary with each story.
> 
> For this first one I decided there's no better way to kick things off with some cute and innocent young fluffy boys, and the headcanon that a young Sting used to be afraid of the dark.
> 
> Enjoy ^^

“Could you stop glowing? I’m trying to sleep…”  
  
Rogue turned around annoyed to face his newly acquired traveling partner, who was lying on the other side of the abandoned shack they found to sleep in, radiating white light.  
  
He had met the boy just three days ago during his search for Gajeel Redfox, who had vanished after Phantom Lord’s disbandment. Following rumors about a dragon slayer who was travelling around and picking fights, and eventually a familiar scent that reminded him of Skiadrum, Rogue had bumped into Sting, who was on a similar mission as he was, only not looking for ‘Black Steel’ Gajeel but for ‘Salamander’ Natsu Dragneel.  
  
Instead of their idols they found each other, and Rogue was utterly disappointed.  
  
_“Hey, You’re a dragon slayer too! That’s awesome! Show me what you got!”_ was the first thing Sting had said to him, but Rogue was tired, hungry and frustrated that all this trouble he went through to find Gajeel hadn’t paid off. He didn’t feel like fighting at all but Sting kept _whining_ and _bragging_ and showing off his moves. He just wouldn’t _shut up_.  
  
Until Rogue finally snapped.  
  
_“Fine! I’ll fight you!”_  
  
It took only one well-placed hit and Sting was down. Rogue dashed in and out of the shadows so fast that he didn’t even see his fist coming and for a second Rogue felt guilty for playing a little dirty. But then Sting started laughing and picked himself up from the ground.  
  
_“Wow! That was _**super**_ cool! You went all like WHOOSH! And then you were gone and then WHAM! You got me just like that! We should totally train together and become even stronger! The strongest dragon slayers in the entire world!”_  
And maybe it was the fact that hearing someone praise him with such sincerity instead of whispering how weird and creepy he was behind his back gave Rogue a spark of joy. Maybe it was the prospect of having a sparring partner with similar magical abilities and the possibility of becoming just as powerful as Gajeel or even surpassing him. Or maybe Rogue was just done with feeling lonely and only having a cat -who was positively adorable but not the brightest crayon in the box, and believed it was a frog- as a companion.  
  
But from that moment on they went on with their journey together, even if Sting was Loud and obnoxious most of the time.  
  
He was a kindred spirit.  
  
But sadly a pain in the ass to sleep next to because his white magic allowed him to summon bright white light, which Rogue was sure of that it must have had its charms.  
Just not when he was trying to sleep.  
  
The first night they spent together he hadn’t noticed it. He was exhausted from his search for Gajeel, emotionally drained from the anticipation and disappointment, and from the long conversations he had with Sting that day. They exchanged stories about the dragons who raised them and that of course brought them a little closer together but also reopened some old wounds. With everything that happened that day Rogue went out cold within seconds of laying his head down, without even noticing the white glow next to him.  
  
On the second night he just let it slide and ignored it as much as he could. He hadn’t slept well at all because of it, being so used to the darkness surrounding him like a velvet black duvet of shelter and comfort.  
  
But this was the third night and he was already really starting to get sick of it.  
  
“I like glowing. I-It…warms me up…” Sting lied, and although Rogue’s socialization skills still needed a lot of improvement as he was used to mostly just observing people in silence but that made him surprisingly good at reading emotions. He poked through the lie without any effort.  
  
“No it doesn’t. You’re just afraid of the dark.”  
  
“Am not!”  
  
“Okay, fine! Then stop glowing and prove it!”  
  
The white light dimmed slowly, hesitated a bit before fading out completely and then it was gone, leaving only a tiny bit of pale moonlight that shone through the small broken window to light up the old wooden shack. Rogue instantly knew he was right. He could smell the fear rolling off of Sting. He could hear the soft whimpers muffled by the bundled up vest that acted as his makeshift pillow. He could see the blonde boy’s body tremble and for a short moment he wanted to give the arrogant white dragon a piece of his own medicine. A big fat _‘told you so’_.  
But he didn’t.  
Because he felt sorry for the frightened boy who had become somewhat dear to him in just those three short days. And because he knew all too well what it was like to feel scared and alone.  
Rogue sighed, got up and crawled over to the trembling form with his sleeping bag tucked underneath his arm and lied down next to Sting, who was actively averting his gaze and trying his best to keep up a tough front.  
  
“It’s okay, don’t be afraid…” he tried to assure him with a soft voice. “Give me your hands.”  
  
Sting pouted, knowing that he had been figured out but obliged anyway and let Rogue hold up his hands in the strip of moonlight. Rogue carefully steered his hands and positioned the fingers like he wanted, letting its shadows create a form against the wooden wall.  
  
“It’s a butterfly…”Sting noted with a small smile, distracted enough by it to forget about his fear of the dark for just a moment.  
  
“Yeah…”Rogue nodded. “But watch this.”  
  
He focused on the shadow on the wall for a moment and then it transformed, morphed into the shadow of a real butterfly that started flapping its wings and fluttered across the wall, and then flew into the room around them.  
  
“Whoooaaaah…….”  
  
Sting’s eyes grew wide and sparkled in the moonlight, and his small smile grew wider. Rogue watched him follow the butterfly with a pleasant warmth in his chest as he lowered Sting’s hands again, but kept holding on to one of them and began pulling shapes out of every menacing looking shadow in the shack. Soon they were surrounded by flowers, cats and dragons, and all kinds of other creatures that danced on the walls and through the air. It cost him almost all of his magic power to do so and it was starting to wear him out.  
  
And it was okay.  
  
Sting was still smiling, gave his hand a soft squeeze and closed his eyes.  
  
“Your magic is so beautiful…”he whispered, resting his head against Rogue’s shoulder.  
  
Beautiful…  
  
Not scary, shady, creepy or dark…  
  
But beautiful…  
  
The irrepressible grin on Rogue’s face felt like it would tear his cheeks apart.  
  
“Thank you…Whenever you feel scared in the dark again...just think about me.”  
  
“I won’t have to. You’ll be right there by my side, right?” Sting said, stating certainly more than asking, as if he was already convinced.  
  
“I will.”  
  
The shadow creatures slowly started to dissolve, like puffs of smoke in a gentle breeze, and as Sting and Rogue wished each other a good night they drifted off to sleep. Their hands were still clasped together, barely fitting in the narrow gap between them.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, for Sting it was definitely love at first sight


End file.
